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1765.

CHAP. VIII.

Subahdar of Deccan dethroned by his Brother-The English take possession of the Northern Circars-Make a Treaty with the Subahdar of DeccanWhich embroils them with Hyder Ali-History of Hyder Ali-Hyder's first war with the English-New Treaty with the Subahdar-Peace with Hyder.

BOOK IV. CARNATIC remained but a short time free from the pressure of the neighbouring powers. In the superior government of Deccan, Nizam Ali, who had The Subahdar resumed, upon the departure of Bussy, the commanding station which he formerly occupied, made no delay in employing all his advantages to effect the dethronement of his feeble-minded brother. On the 18th of July, 1761, he committed the Subahdar to a prison; and invested himself with the full powers and insignia of the government.

of Deccan dethroned by his brother.

The treaty, by the provisions of which the pretensions of England and France were at this time adjusted, affords a singular illustration of the obvious and neglected truth, that the knowledge requisite for good government in India cannot be possessed by rulers sitting and deliberating in Europe. By the treaty of Paris, concluded on the 10th of February, 1763, Salabut Jung was acknowledged as lawful Subahdar of Deccan, after he had been nearly two years dethroned, and another reigning in his stead. This instrument indeed, which recognised Salabut Jung as a great sovereign, was the immediate cause of his death; for Nizam Ali, who had been withheld by dread of the restoration of the French power in India, no sooner received intelligence of the treaty of Paris, by which the French resigned Carnatic and appeared to abandon the contest, than he felt himself delivered from all restraint, and ordered his brother to be murdered in September, 1763.

With little concern about Bassalut Jung, who nevertheless was elder brother of Nizam Ali, that usurper, at once a regicide and fratricide, now grasped, without a rival, the power of Subahdar of Deccan. The personal title or name of himself and his father have by the English been converted into the appellative of his sovereignty; and it is under the title of the Nizam, that the Subahdar of Deccan is commonly known.

natic.

In the beginning of the year 1765, the English and Mahomed Ali their CHAP. VIII. Nabob were summoned to action, by the irruption of Nizam Ali into Carnatic. 1765. With a great army, which seemed to have no object in view but plunder and The usurper destruction, he laid waste the open country with a ferocity, even greater than invades Carthe usual barbarity of Indian warfare. The troops of the English and Nabob were put in motion from Arcot, under the command of Colonel Campbell, and came in sight of the enemy at the Pagoda of Tripetti. The Nizam felt no desire to fight: His army was reduced to great distress for provisions and water: He decamped accordingly on a sudden, and marching forty miles in one day evacuated Carnatic by way of Colastria and Nelore.

English the

the Northern

that of Carna

ed Ali.

It was at this time that Lord Clive, on his passage from Europe to Bengal, The phirmaun of the Emperor arrived at Madras. The ascendancy of the English over the Mogul, the unfor- gives to the tunate and nominal Emperor Shah Aulum, rendered it extremely easy to pro- immediate gocure from him those impérial grants which, however little respected by the vernment of sword, still gave the appearance of legal right to territorial possession within Circars; and the ancient limits of the Mogul empire. A phirmaun was solicited and obtained tic to Mahomfor the maritime districts, known by the title of the Northern Circars. Like the rest of India this tract was held by renters, responsible for a certain portion of revenue. Of these some were of recent appointment; others were the ancient Rajahs and Polygars of the country; a set of men who were often found to be the most convenient renters, and who, on the regular payment of the expected revenue, were seldom displaced. The country fell within the government of the Subahdar of Deccan, and was managed by a deputy or commissioner of his appointment. After the English, however, had expelled from it the French, the authority of the Subahdar had been rather nominal than real. The English held possession of their factories and forts; the Rajahs and Polygars assumed a species of independence; Salabat Jung had offered it to Mahomed Ali at the time of his quarrel with Bussy at Hyderabad; and Nizam Ali himself had proposed to surrender it to the English, on the condition of military assistance against Hyder Ali and the Mahrattas. The advantage of possessing the whole line of coast which joined the English territories in Carnatic to those in Bengal, suggested to Clive the importance of obtaining it on permanent terms. A phirmaun was accordingly received from the Emperor, by which, as far as the formality of his sanction could extend, the Northern Circars were freed from their dependance upon the Subahdar of Deccan, and bestowed upon the English. Nor was this the only diminution which the nominal empire of the Nizam sustained; for another phirmaun was procured from the Emperor, by which

Book IV. Carnatic itself was rendered independent of his authority; and bestowed, holding immediately of the Emperor, upon the Nabob Mahomed Ali, together with the new titles of Wallau Jau, Ummir ul Hind, which he ever afterwards used.*

1766.

The English take posses

thern Circars;

Nizam Ali.

To take possession of the Circars, on its new and independent footing, sion of the nor-General Calliaud marched with the troops of Carnatic, and on the part of the and conclude' Rajahs and Polygars found little opposition to subdue. The Nizam, or Subaha treaty with dar, was at that time engaged in the country of Barad, making head against the Mahrattas. But he no sooner heard of the operations of the English, than he proceeded with great expedition to Hyderabad; and to avenge himself for the usurpation, as it appeared to him, of an important part of his dominions, made preparations for the invasion of Carnatic. The Presidency, whom their pecuniary weakness rendered timid, were alarmed at the prospect of a war with the Subahdar; and sent orders to Calliaud to hasten to Hyderabad with full powers to negotiate a peace. A treaty was concluded on the 12th of November, 1766, by which the Company agreed to pay to the Nizam an annual tribute of five lacks of rupees for the three circars of Rajahmundry, Ellore, and Mustephanagur; and for those of Siccacole (Chicacole) and Murtezanagur, two lacks each, as soon as they were definitively placed in their hands. Murtezanagur, commonly called Guntoor, had been assigned as a jaghire to Bassalut Jung; and the Company were pleased to suspend their occupation of it, so long as Bassalut Jung should live, or so long as he should remain a faithful subject to Nizam Ali. They further engaged to hold a body of troops in readiness, “to settle in every thing right and proper, the affairs of his Highness's government."

* It is stated that Clive even entertained the project of obtaining for Mahomed Ali the phirmaun of Subahdar of Deccan; but that the Nabob, who it is true was worn out with the struggle which he had already sustained, who now panted for ease and enjoyment, and whose qualities Clive estimated at more than their actual value (in his correspondence with the Directors, he represents his word as more trust-worthy than that of any Mahomedan whom he had ever known. Reports of Committee, 1772), shrunk from the prospect of the arduous enterprise, and declared that "the Deccan was too great for him to desire to have the charge of its government." Letter from the Nabob to Clive in 1765, MS. quoted (p. 150) by the author of the History and Management of the East India Company. It is also affirmed, perhaps on better grounds (Observations by the President and Council, on Sir John Lindsay's Letter of the 22d of June, 1771; Papers in Rous's Appendix, p. 371) that the Nabob used his endeavours to obtain the exertion of the English power to procure him this high elevation; but met not with a corresponding disposition in the servants of the Company. The point is not of sufficient importance to require that we should spend any time in endeavouring to ascertain whether the one allegation or the other is the truth.

And they gave him a present of five lacks of rupees, which the Nabob was CHAP. VIII. ordered to find money to pay.

1767.

embroils them

the Nizam

This treaty has been severely condemned. But the Presidency were not The treaty mistaken in regard to their own pecuniary difficulties, though they probably with Hyder over-estimated the power of the Nizam, whose unpaid and mutinous troops the Ali; whom money which he received by the treaty scarcely enabled him for a short time to joins. appease. The most imprudent article of the agreement was that which stipulated for the Nizam the assistance of English troops; because this had an evident tendency to embroil, and in the event did actually embroil them with other powers. The exploit in which they were first to be employed, the reduction of the fort of Bangalore, was not, it is probable, disliked by the Presidency; because they were already upon hostile terms with Hyder Ali, to whom it belonged. The Nizam, however, after availing himself of the assistance of the British troops in collecting the tribute from the Polygars, on his march, listened to the overtures of Hyder, who was too eminent a master in the arts of intrigue to let slip an opportunity of dividing his enemies: The Nizam concluded with him a treaty of alliance, in consequence of which they united their forces at Bangalore: And, in August 1767, they began to make incursions into Carnatic.

Hyder Ali, who began to occupy the attention of the English, and who History of Hyder Ali. proved the most formidable enemy whom they had ever encountered in India, had now rendered himself entire master of the kingdom of Mysore. The principality of Mysore, a region of considerable magnitude, had formed one of the dependencies of the great Hindu government of Bijanuggur, which was broken up by the formation of the Mohamedan kingdoms in Deccan. When the declining power of the sovereigns of Bijanuggur enabled Mysore to throw off its dependence upon that ancient monarchy, its distance and other local circumstances saved it from subjection to any of the Mohamedan powers. It continued, therefore, till the period of Hyder's usurpation, under a pure Hindu government, and afforded a satisfactory specimen of the political institutions of the native Hindus. The arts of government were less understood in that, than in the Mohamedan districts of India. Hardly ever have mankind been united in considerable societies under a form of polity more rude, than that which has every where been found in those parts of India which remained purely Hindu.†

Second Report of the Committee of Secrecy in 1781, p. 22; Hist. and Management, p. 151; Collection of Treaties, p. 364.

+ See the illustrations of the Mysore Government, in the instructive volume of Col. Wilks.

1767.

The

Book IV. At a period considerably prior to the rise of Hyder, the government of Mysore had assumed that state, which, if we may judge by its own example, and that of the Mahrattas, Hindu governments had a general tendency to assume. Rajah, or Monarch, was stripped of all power, while a minister kept him a prisoner, and governed absolutely in his name. At the time when the wars of the English in Carnatic commenced, the powers of the Rajah of Mysore were usurped by two brothers, named Deoraj, and Nunjeraj. It was this same Nunjeraj, whom the French were enabled to bring to their assistance at Trichinopoly; and who there exhibited so many specimens of the rudeness of his people, and of his own ignorance and incapacity. And it was in the station of a subordinate officer in the service of this commander, that Hyder Ali began his career.

Mahomed Beloli, the great grandfather of Hyder, was a native of Punjab, who came into Deccan in the character of a fakir, and, settling in the district of Calburga, about 110 miles in a north-west direction from Hyderabad, acquired considerable property by the exercise of his religious talents. Mahomed Beloli had two sons, Mahomed Ali, and Mahomed Wellee. They left their father's house, and travelling southward became, at Sera, revenue peons, or armed men, employed, according to Indian practice, in the forced collection of the taxes. Mahomed Ali died at Colar, and Mahomed Wellee, for the sake of his property, expelled his widow and son, and drove them from his doors. The name of the son was Futtee Mahomed, the father of Hyder. He obtained, along with his mother, protection from a petty officer, called a naik of peons, by whom he was brought up and employed as a peon, or common foot soldier, in the party under his command. Futtee Mahomed found means to distinguish himself, and, in the service of the Nabob of Sera, became, first a naik of peons, and afterwards the fojedar, or military superintendant of a district. But misfortune overtook his master. The Nabob was dethroned, his family plundered;

and Futtee Mahomed lost his life in their defence. He left two sons, the elder Shabas, the youngest Hyder, and a widow, who had a brother, the naik of a few peons, in the service of a Killedar of Bangalore. With this man, the mother of Hyder sought, and, together with her sons, obtained protection. When Shabas, the elder of the brothers, grew towards manhood, he was recommended by his uncle to an officer in the service of the Rajah of Mysore. The youth quickly rose to distinction; and obtained the command of 200 horse and 1,000 peons. Hyder, till the age of twenty-seven, could be confined to no serious persuit, but spent his life between the labours of the chase, and the pleasures of voluptuous indolence and riot. He joined, however, the troops of

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